Reflection of plastic bottle jewellery challenge

This week it was asked of my peers and I, to create jewellery from plastic bottles. We were provided with the method and some of the materials required upon which we were to create the jewellery and then fill out the required templates of our challenge.

I enjoyed learning how to make a pair of earrings out of my plastic bottles and getting the opportunity to recycle the plastic in another way rather then just the recycle bin. I first had to cut out my desired shape of earrings from the bottle and then colour the plastic cut outs in with permanent marker, I chose pink and purple. Afterwards I lit a candle and used needle nose pliers to hold my cut out plastic over the flame, wielding it however I liked into nice, creative curves, whilst sealing the rough edges, watching that I didn't burn or melt the plastic. I then used the pliers to hold a needle and heat it up in the flame, then pierced a hole at the top of both plastic cut outs, to put the earring ring through it and closing it with the pliers. Viola earrings!!

They are so pretty and I am very proud of them. I brought them to my friends children aged 2-3 years, to play with under my close supervision and all children involved, handed them to me saying "earrings", as if I should know this and asking, 'why are you wanting me to play with earrings?'. I encouraged them to wear my beautiful creation to which the girls were very happy to oblige, they were also proud of their pretty new adornment.

After watching this weeks tutorial and the Teacher telling us that she was also very proud of her creation but that her colleagues all agreed they thought they looked beautiful but would never wear them, I am sad to say I agree. I love my earrings and they are beautiful but I would never be seen wearing them. I had the same reaction from my friends, they were all enthralled by the photos of gorgeous earrings I sent them until I told them where they came from. This makes me realise that this creation is better for a younger audience who are more 'innocent' to the world and don't worry as much about wearing recycled materials as us older more 'experienced' people are.

Id also like to note that the only issues I had with my creation was that the colouring in I did on them, got scratched off very easily by the children and that if I am ever to create them again, I would use already coloured bottles.